When John von Neumann introduced the idea of the “conscious collapse” into quantum theory, he committed a heresy—or at least something that would have been considered a heresy up until that point—by introducing a causal agent called “consciousness” within science. Science until that point had worked explicitly to keep mind and consciousness out of the study of the material world, and...
Many people who look at Vedic philosophy in current times, understand it as Advaita, which is an interpretation of Vedānta, that claims that the ultimate reality is a singular, unified existence called Brahman, from which the world is produced as māyā or illusion. The Brahman is equated with consciousness, although how consciousness comes under illusion has been a contentious issue since...
My two previous posts explored the flaws in the materialist reduction of free will to rationality and discussed the use of free will in science. The second post concluded by arguing that every conscious experience involves choices, and these may be good or bad―depending on whether they are successful. This post extends the above arguments to incorporate our everyday notions about...
The previous post examined the materialist critique of free will and showed why the reduction of free will to rationality (and then to the mechanization of rationality) is flawed because rationality itself involves choices of axioms that themselves cannot be rationalized―i.e. reduced to more fundamental axioms. The only way to solve the problem of free will is to postulate that it...
Attacks on free will have become fairly common. While the attackers often recognize what is at risk — namely the sense of responsibility and accountability — they are motivated by establishing the primacy of what science seems to be telling us over what we have commonsensically believed over the centuries. This post examines the critique of free will and its associated problems, showing why contrary...
What is a Number? Is it an idea or a thing? This question has been debated since Greek times, and it still remains unanswered in philosophy and science. This post examines the nature of the problem, and what its likely resolution will look like. It illustrates how the problem of numbers leads to the problem of choice, which then results in...
Since the time of Greek philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates—it has been believed that the present universe is comprised of two things: form and substance. Forms are the ideas that exist even when substances don’t; the world of things combines form and substance, kind of like the form of a statue exists in the mind of a sculptor and is applied to a...
During recent online conversations with commentators, I heard a refrain about science: science is only a model, it has nothing to do with reality; our models may get closer to reality over time, but we have no way of knowing that they have gotten to reality, nor do we know that they will eventually get there. I was taken aback by...
Every area of knowledge begins with the question: What is reality? If I see an apple, is it real? If I see some work of art and think it is beautiful, is it really beautiful? Is money real? Is power real? Is objectivity real? Does she really love me? The question of reality pervades every aspect of our existence, and it...
How we perceive taste, smell, touch, sound, and sight is a fact about our perception, but it has never been properly understood in biology, psychology, or philosophy. The problem is that we suppose material objects to be the length, mass, charge, momentum, energy, temperature, etc. How these physical properties become taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight remains a mystery because the...
Descartes created the mind-body divide and claimed these to be two different substances—the extended substance (res extensa) and the thinking substance (res cogitans). However, with the progress in science (and attempts to subsume thinking under matter), the distinction between mind and body gets hazier by the day. What is the difference between matter and spirit, if any at all?
In the Srimad Bhagāvatam, a Vedic text widely regarded as the culmination of Vedānta (which is in itself considered the conclusion of all knowledge), Sage Kapila elaborates the Sāńkhya theory of material nature to his mother Devahuti and concludes (SB 3.32.32): Philosophical research culminates in understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead. After achieving this understanding, when one becomes free from the...
